glorious stretch of Broadway known as Ladies
Mile. Here were the great shops where refined
women selected lacework and millinery.
Although the neighborhood has for years been
a warehouse and small-factory district, many
of the elegant storefronts remain. Some are
being restored. A preservation battle has just
landmarked many more.
Ladies Mile ends at 23rd Street-Madison
Square. After World War I, Broadway's shop
ping district moved north, and the streets near
Madison Square became a bastion of blue
collar jobs. But this part of Broadway is
once again attracting the young and the
stylish-professionals like John Bond.
I1
HE LOOK is Ralph Lauren. The price is
Ralph Kramden." John Bond, 32-year
old upstart advertising executive is
reading me his recent award-winning
Sad for men's suits.
"You need to be witty," Bond says at his
agency, Kirschenbaum and Bond, on Broad
way at 26th Street. His speech is fast clipped,
his eye movements rapid.
"Americans see
1,500 ads a day. You've got to break through
that clutter.
"We're one of the hottest agencies in the
country. Two years ago we started with one
$200,000 account; now we have 25 million dol
lars in billings. We went from half an office
and a beach chair to this."
His offices are not swank Madison Avenue.
Their aura is converted warehouse. But they
bustle. And like many of the brasher agencies,
they are on Broadway.
"Rent's a lot cheaper than on Madison Ave
nue," says Bond.
"And the location says
something about not being in the mainstream.
Maybe when they all move over here, we'll
move back over there."
A few blocks north of Bond's office, where
Broadway intersects Sixth Avenue, sits Her
ald Square. This dinky little square has a big
reputation-for giving George M. Cohan's
regards to Broadway. Indeed around the turn
of the century Tin Pan Alley and New York's
theater district were anchored here at 34th
Street. At least 85 theaters lined the streets in
this era before movies and TV; their new elec
tric lights gave Broadway its nickname, the
Great White Way.
More enduring than the lights in Herald
Square has been Macy's department store,
built in 1901. Once there was Gimbel's as well.
Both stores catered to low- to middle-income
shoppers. But as Manhattan rents forced those
residents off the island, Gimbel's closed.
Macy's has shifted focus to upscale buyers.
Also fast disappearing are New York's gar
ment workers-mostly Russian Jewish and
Italian immigrants who colonized the upper
30s between Broadway and Seventh Avenue
in the 1920s. Now it is cheaper to have clothes
made in Asia. Increasingly these streets are
dominated by prestigious designers.
She greets me, this unparalleled icon of the
American working woman, in her office over
looking Times Square. Her dark hair is closely
NationalGeographic, September 1990